The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages

Rating:
Summary: The [misguided] pursuit of the Millennuim.
Review: "O just God, mighty judge, the game was not fairly divided between them and us. Their satiety was our famine; their merriment was our wretchedness; their jousts and tournaments were our torments...Their feasts, delectations, pomps, vanities excesses and superfluities were our fastings, penalties, wants, calamities, and spoilation. The love ditties and laughter of their dances were our mockery, our groanings and remonstrations."

The Chancellor of Cambridge, John Bromyard, wrote this quote in a sermon, cited in Norman Cohn's intriguing study of revolutionary millennial movements. It illustrates the feeling of resentment toward the established Church in Europe and aristocracy in Europe in the middle ages. It also reminds one of similar social protest movements from whatever party throughout history. Popular resentment arose during the Middle Ages, with legitimate grievances, whenever the stable social order rooted in feudalism and economic stability was threatened. Cohn's defines "the Millennium," which medieval heretical sects and religious radicals strove for as collective, terrestrial, imminent, total, and miraculous. The Millennium was a hypothetical Kingdom of Heaven/God on Earth where the faithful would enjoy material wealth in this world in a state of total equality and oneness with nature after some cataclysmic battle with the forces of evil. This tradition arose from the obvious sources: the biblical texts of Daniel along with certain scattered Old Testament prophecies; and from the words of Jesus and Paul in the New Testament, and in particular the Book of Revelation (the Apocalypse) of St. John. Similar prophetic traditions developed in the medieval period from the Sibylline Oracles, which were Roman texts purporting to reveal the appearance of Christ, and blatant forgeries attributed to either Old Testament prophets, the Apostles or authoritative Fathers of the Church (such as the apocryphal Fifth Epistle of Clement). A popular legend in particular was the second coming of the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire who would abolish poverty, reunify Germany and destroy the Muslims who threatened the frontiers of Christendom at that time. Frederick II and Charlemagne were two popular emperors in the medieval eschatological imagination. The notorious first "Peasants Crusade" was stirred up and (more or less led) by Peter the Hermit, a wandering mystic who visited the Holy Land. Some secular/lay religious ascetic groups, notably the Flagellants, believed that their self-inflicted sufferings were equal to that of Christ and that they were atoning for the sins of the people in order to stave off the Black Death which was ravaging Europe at that time. Several sects, like those of the Adamites in Bohemia, Thomas Muntzer and the Anabaptists led by John of Leyden went on terrorist rampages to overthrow the surrounding secular and Church authorities in order to establish a reign of the saints on earth. Muntzer and the Anabaptists called for a holy war to cleanse the earth of sinful humanity, and the common ownership of property. John of Leyden instituted a Soviet-style reign of terror in Muster, a town in Germany. Inspired by religious fanaticism against what he perceived as the apostate churches of Rome and Luther, Leyden burned all Church books except for the Bible, declared communal ownership of property, mandated polygamy and forced the excess women of the town to become extra wives for the men of the city. His quasi-socialistic experiment failed when his followers were starved out the soldiers of the local Catholic archbishop and local lords and the city was taken over. The most interesting category of religious renegades that Cohn outlines are the "mystical anarchists" or Brethren of the Free Spirit. They were a disparate group of mystics and intellectuals who believed that since they had conquered sin within themselves and attained inner Divinity, they could commit any crime they wanted without any incurred guilt. They believed that they could rob, commit murder and fraud without any sin or guilt because living "totally in the spirit" liberated them from all man made and external religious constraints. The Free Spirit adepts were particularly interested in indulging in sexual promiscuity because sexual transgressions such as homosexuality, fornication and adultery went directly against the grain of the Roman Catholic ideals of celibacy and chastity. The only sin in their eyes was to be ignorant of one's own inner God, much like today's New Age movement.

These millennial movements gained ground among the urban, unskilled poor who had been uprooted by famines, high taxes and lack of opportunities in the countryside. Millennialism took off particularly in the High Middle Ages (1100-1400s) and persisted after the Reformation in the form of several radical Anabaptist sects, as opposed to the earlier "dark ages" before the advent of the Crusades. The leaders tended to come from the educated classes and merchants, were either intellectuals or pseudo-intellectuals and skilled at demagoguery--inciting the popular imaginations of the disaffected crowds that followed them. The most interesting parts of Cohn's Pursuit of the Millennium__ are the parallels between these medieval upsurges and how Communism and Nazism in retrospect reflect upon them. Many of the itinerant prophetae aroused popular anger against the Jews and encouraged physical attacks and massacre upon them, along with the loose living clergy. Some millennial movements were inspired by the ancient Greek notion of a human state of Nature, similar to the Genesis version of the created man in Paradise, where all humans lived in a state of harmony and mutual cooperation. This "Golden Age" was later destroyed, not by disobedience to God as in the biblical account, but by the creation of the concept of private property and the division of labor and therefore the socioeconomic inequalities this "fall" entails. It is very similar to Marx's vision of communist utopia free from the external constraints of the state and organized religion. In the final analysis, modern popular anti-religious movements such as those inspired by mass media pop culture, and the rhetoric of equality and democracy are by no means new. They are part of a tradition of revolution stretching back to the beginning of time.

Rating:
Summary: The [misguided] pursuit of the Millennuim.
Review: "O just God, mighty judge, the game was not fairly divided between them and us. Their satiety was our famine; their merriment was our wretchedness; their jousts and tournaments were our torments...Their feasts, delectations, pomps, vanities excesses and superfluities were our fastings, penalties, wants, calamities, and spoilation. The love ditties and laughter of their dances were our mockery, our groanings and remonstrations."

The Chancellor of Cambridge, John Bromyard, wrote this quote in a sermon, cited in Norman Cohn's intriguing study of revolutionary millennial movements. It illustrates the feeling of resentment toward the established Church in Europe and aristocracy in Europe in the middle ages. It also reminds one of similar social protest movements from whatever party throughout history. Popular resentment arose during the Middle Ages, with legitimate grievances, whenever the stable social order rooted in feudalism and economic stability was threatened. Cohn's defines "the Millennium," which medieval heretical sects and religious radicals strove for as collective, terrestrial, imminent, total, and miraculous. The Millennium was a hypothetical Kingdom of Heaven/God on Earth where the faithful would enjoy material wealth in this world in a state of total equality and oneness with nature after some cataclysmic battle with the forces of evil. This tradition arose from the obvious sources: the biblical texts of Daniel along with certain scattered Old Testament prophecies; and from the words of Jesus and Paul in the New Testament, and in particular the Book of Revelation (the Apocalypse) of St. John. Similar prophetic traditions developed in the medieval period from the Sibylline Oracles, which were Roman texts purporting to reveal the appearance of Christ, and blatant forgeries attributed to either Old Testament prophets, the Apostles or authoritative Fathers of the Church (such as the apocryphal Fifth Epistle of Clement). A popular legend in particular was the second coming of the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire who would abolish poverty, reunify Germany and destroy the Muslims who threatened the frontiers of Christendom at that time. Frederick II and Charlemagne were two popular emperors in the medieval eschatological imagination. The notorious first "Peasants Crusade" was stirred up and (more or less led) by Peter the Hermit, a wandering mystic who visited the Holy Land. Some secular/lay religious ascetic groups, notably the Flagellants, believed that their self-inflicted sufferings were equal to that of Christ and that they were atoning for the sins of the people in order to stave off the Black Death which was ravaging Europe at that time. Several sects, like those of the Adamites in Bohemia, Thomas Muntzer and the Anabaptists led by John of Leyden went on terrorist rampages to overthrow the surrounding secular and Church authorities in order to establish a reign of the saints on earth. Muntzer and the Anabaptists called for a holy war to cleanse the earth of sinful humanity, and the common ownership of property. John of Leyden instituted a Soviet-style reign of terror in Muster, a town in Germany. Inspired by religious fanaticism against what he perceived as the apostate churches of Rome and Luther, Leyden burned all Church books except for the Bible, declared communal ownership of property, mandated polygamy and forced the excess women of the town to become extra wives for the men of the city. His quasi-socialistic experiment failed when his followers were starved out the soldiers of the local Catholic archbishop and local lords and the city was taken over. The most interesting category of religious renegades that Cohn outlines are the "mystical anarchists" or Brethren of the Free Spirit. They were a disparate group of mystics and intellectuals who believed that since they had conquered sin within themselves and attained inner Divinity, they could commit any crime they wanted without any incurred guilt. They believed that they could rob, commit murder and fraud without any sin or guilt because living "totally in the spirit" liberated them from all man made and external religious constraints. The Free Spirit adepts were particularly interested in indulging in sexual promiscuity because sexual transgressions such as homosexuality, fornication and adultery went directly against the grain of the Roman Catholic ideals of celibacy and chastity. The only sin in their eyes was to be ignorant of one's own inner God, much like today's New Age movement.

These millennial movements gained ground among the urban, unskilled poor who had been uprooted by famines, high taxes and lack of opportunities in the countryside. Millennialism took off particularly in the High Middle Ages (1100-1400s) and persisted after the Reformation in the form of several radical Anabaptist sects, as opposed to the earlier "dark ages" before the advent of the Crusades. The leaders tended to come from the educated classes and merchants, were either intellectuals or pseudo-intellectuals and skilled at demagoguery--inciting the popular imaginations of the disaffected crowds that followed them. The most interesting parts of Cohn's Pursuit of the Millennium__ are the parallels between these medieval upsurges and how Communism and Nazism in retrospect reflect upon them. Many of the itinerant prophetae aroused popular anger against the Jews and encouraged physical attacks and massacre upon them, along with the loose living clergy. Some millennial movements were inspired by the ancient Greek notion of a human state of Nature, similar to the Genesis version of the created man in Paradise, where all humans lived in a state of harmony and mutual cooperation. This "Golden Age" was later destroyed, not by disobedience to God as in the biblical account, but by the creation of the concept of private property and the division of labor and therefore the socioeconomic inequalities this "fall" entails. It is very similar to Marx's vision of communist utopia free from the external constraints of the state and organized religion. In the final analysis, modern popular anti-religious movements such as those inspired by mass media pop culture, and the rhetoric of equality and democracy are by no means new. They are part of a tradition of revolution stretching back to the beginning of time.

Rating:
Summary: Millennium Bugs
Review: A friend recommended this to me as 'a great read' and I also recommend it to you for the same reason. It is rare that a work can be appreciated for its academic value, and for pure fascination. Who could not but be fascinated by the medieval flagellants, the Taborites, Joachim of Fiore, the Tafurs, the Anabaptists and the Ranters. Some groups awaited the returned of the Emperor Constantine, or Frederick Barbarossa, or even the Duke of Flanders, to herald the last days. Other preached, and practised, Free Love, and community of goods. Startingly, the Anabaptists of Munster (Germany) withstood a lengthy siege for their beliefs, while what was happening inside the walls of the city seemed to prefigure the regime of Stalin. Important to recall the limitations of medieval Catholicism, which drove many into fringe sects, and eventually helped spawn the Reformation. Not that the Protestant princes were any more sympathetic to the Prophets of the Poor. For an academic book, this is also fun to read, though its subject in places in quite grisly.

Rating:
Summary: Stories of the last new millenium
Review: After being swept up in Cohn's dramatic account of waves of "free spirits," beguines, proto-anarchists, true believers, and flagellants, I saw echoes of all of them in our time.

Rating:
Summary: Millenium Madness!
Review: One of the coolest books we've read in a good while, Norman Cohn's book talks about 'revolutionary millenarians and mystical anarchists of the middle ages.'That is, nutcases. From the flagellants to naked wandering preachers to the disaffected masses who would march off to plunder Europe and the Holy Land in the name of the Cross, this book is chock full of instructive and highly amusing anecdotes about a staggering cross-section of millenial lunacy. Not just for fun and games, though -- his bibliography spans nearly a hundred pages and this is a classic historical work. [HistoryHouse.com]

Rating:
Summary: The Revolt of the Masses in the Middle Ages.
Review: The apocalyptic imagination has always exercised great control over the mind of the Western man - from bands of Jewish zealots in the time of Josephus to the masses of poor warriors in the Crusades to take the Holy Land for Christendom to the mutual hurling of the epithet "Antichrist" between Luther and the Pope, and it has been keenly expressed in the Biblical tradition within the Books of Daniel and Revelations. _The Pursuit of the Millennium_ takes a look at the mass movements and delusions that developed out of this tradition in the Middle Ages and the period following the Middle Ages, the Reformation. Norman Cohn shows how prejudices and hatreds among the poor (especially against the Jews, the clergy, and the wealthy) were used by mystical prophetae in conjunction with the apocalyptic tradition to give rise to mass movements which resulted in much mayhem and bloodshed. For example, the People's and Shepherd's Crusades in the Middle Ages were movements of mindless zealotry which ended in mass slaughter. Cohn examines various sects that developed out of these apocalyptic traditions around such figures as the Emperor Frederick, Joachim of Fiore, and various other individuals and imposters who sought to mobilize the masses of poor. In the later Middle Ages, this type of movement was exemplified among the flagellants, the Brethren of the Free Spirit, Taborites and followers of Thomas Muntzer, the militant wing of the Anabaptists, and later the Ranters in England. Often, these movements incorporated Joachimite speculations about a coming Age of the Spirit, mystical doctrines that made one was free to sin as one pleased (Free Spirit), and communistic ideals that involved belief in a Golden Age in which all men had lived as brothers with all things in common. Class struggle between rich and poor, or between poor and clergy (who were often contaminated by the sins of Avaritia and Luxuria) developed into all out wars. The belief that the apostles had lived in poverty and that God had intended all men to live in a communistic setting gave impetus to many individuals to reject church orthodoxy and form their own apocalyptic movements. These movements depended on the poor who held steadfastly to their often megalomanical leaders in their pursuit of messianic ideals and the coming of the millennium. Cohn does an excellent job of describing this process in detail and deals with much of the mysticism and myth surrounding it.

In the modern era, it is apparent that millenarian zeal has not died off at all. The communist revolutions in Russia and the rise of the Third Reich in Germany were both movements in the same line as these earlier mass movements in the Middle Ages. While they have shed much of the apocalyptic myth and become atheistic, the same principles were involved in their formation, and in the formation of similar movements that continue in the world today.

Rating:
Summary: A Medieval Glimpse into Modern Totalitarian Thought
Review: The wonderful Norman Cohn has created an interesting and important book examining revolutionary messianism in medieval and Reformation Europe. It was not quite as good as Norman Cohn's Europe's Inner Demons (a very high benchmark, indeed) but it posesses the same potent ability to chart accurately and interestely a trend from the past in its own historical context and then to demonstrate to the reader the ways in which this knowledge is important for an understanding within our own historical period. He cleanly takes the reader through the various millenial movements in a way that is both entertaining, informative, and, best of all, understandable. The adept mind of an historian blended with the skill of a writer. A good book.

Rating:
Summary: A Medieval Glimpse into Modern Totalitarian Thought
Review: The wonderful Norman Cohn has created an interesting and important book examining revolutionary messianism in medieval and Reformation Europe. It was not quite as good as Norman Cohn's Europe's Inner Demons (a very high benchmark, indeed) but it posesses the same potent ability to chart accurately and interestely a trend from the past in its own historical context and then to demonstrate to the reader the ways in which this knowledge is important for an understanding within our own historical period. He cleanly takes the reader through the various millenial movements in a way that is both entertaining, informative, and, best of all, understandable. The adept mind of an historian blended with the skill of a writer. A good book.

Rating:
Summary: A classic of social history
Review: There are two quite good and extensive reviews of this book on the Amazon site, one by a Zosimos and another by DerekPillion.I recommend them.
The phenomena discussed by Norman Cohn in this book, millenial expectations leading to revolutionary and often violent behavior are of course not confined to the medieval Christian period. But the amount of energy and proliferation of these movements suggest that they were particularly prevalent in this time. The eleven through sixteenth centuries were too the time of the Crusades another product of millenial expections. The clergy, the wealthy and the Jews were subject to particular attack.
Cohn does not a masterful job in describing the very complicated developments of this historical period.
This work is a classic of social history.